About Me

I am a Christian, wife of 28 years to an amazing man, and mom to adults identical triplet girls. I came to know Christ through Bible Study Fellowship (BSF), and it is a ministry near and dear to my heart. I was in leadership at BSF for 14 years as a Substitute Teaching Leader, Group Leader, Children's Leader, and Class Secretary. I am also a certified childbirth educator and infant massage instructor. Besides having a passion for the Lord and sharing Him with others, I am also passionate for art, and I love to help and share with other paper crafters and artists. I enjoy doing layouts of all sizes, art journaling, cards, mixed media, ATCs, altered art, etc. I love it all!

In accordance with FTC16CFR, Part 255, I declare that I currently receive or have received free products or am paid a fee to promote and endorse for free from the following companies: Canvas Corp Brands, Memory Box Co., Blue Fern Studios, Our Daily Bread Designs, Spellbinders Paper Arts, Stampin' Things, and Scrapbook.com. These companies generously supply me with complimentary products and/or a paid fee for promotional purposes. My enthusiasm in promoting their products does not stem from the fact that I am compensated by them, but because I truly love their products and feel their product lines and services to be superior in this industry.

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Today I wanted to share what we will be doing for the 2013 Scripture Challenge. I was very touched by Psalm 40:3 which says "He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the LORD." My desire is to "sing" hymns and praises through words, songs, written devotionals, etc., and that God takes the words that He gives me and use them as He desires. My prayer is that I glorify Him in all things and that many are drawn to Him and "put their trust in the LORD." Casting Crowns has a song that sums it all up. It's called "Until the Whole World Hears." With that strong desire, I felt that we need to continue studying the truths in old hymns. Thus for 2013, I will be continuing our study of hymn stories and Biblical truths found in the hymn chosen for each study.

This year I will continue by picking an old hymn as God leads me and then providing information on the author of the hymn and a bit of background on the hymn. I also will continue to share scriptures that are applicable to the hymn and prepare a study over the scripture and truths from the hymn. Our study will always be taken back to the Bible.

Album, ATC, Cards--What Will You Use?
So, what will you use for your album this year? What have you used in the past? Maybe you are new to these challenges and would like some ideas. You can:

*Create ATCs and put them on a holder
*Create any size scrapbook page and put in an album
*Create cards and mail to someone that might need to hear the words you have for them
*Or create anything else you can think of; let your imagine run wild

Of course, if you are doing pages, you can create any size and use any album you want! You can do hybrid or digi pages; this is your album. You can create anything you wish. These are just ideas! I will be doing 6x6 pages as I did for 2012. I really love this size for these challenges, and they make a great album for the coffee table!

If You Participate, Do You Have to Create Something?Absolutely not! :) You can just study God's Word and keep notes. You do not have to create a thing! I personally love the creating part and someday my kids can have these pages too as part of my faith legacy. For those of you not creating pages, etc., you may just want to keep a journal of each hymn and scripture along with your study notes.

What if You Want to Study with People at Church?Wonderful! Please have them study along. However, I ask that you not copy my work. I also ask that you have the participants print the study directly from my blog post each time. It takes me many, many hours to prepare these studies, and they are inspired by the Lord. The studies are copyrighted, and I pray that you respect that. Thank you!For more information, please see the section below titled "Will this challenge be hosted on other sites? What about posting on my own blog?"

Now let me share a bit about how this challenge will work.
**I will post two studies a month beginning Sunday, January 13, 2013. Mark your calendars, and see the entire 2013 calendar below! :)
**Challenges will be posted usually by 5 p.m. Eastern Time on challenge Sundays.
**My post will also share some thoughts, the hymn, and scripture or scriptures that I chose (usually from the NIV), and a picture of my page.
**Then you will study your Bible and find scriptures that are meaningful to you based on the study and truth posted for that week.
**I love using Biblegateway to look up single keywords in the Bible. It is a great resource for this study.
**Then you will create your page using your selected scripture/thoughts based on the study for that week.
**Feel free to look at the 2012 Hymn and Scripture Challenge to see how the study will work.

Is there a time limit to complete the challenge?
No, there is not a time limit to complete the challenge. This is for you so that you can study and learn to apply God's truths to your daily life! You do what you can when you can. On occasion, I may offer RAKs, and at those times there will be a deadline. Watch out for those. :) You may join this challenge at ANY time throughout the year!

Do I need to sign up?
No, you can just subscribe to my blog to get the updates.

Will this challenge be hosted on other sites? What about posting on my own blog?
No, you will only be able to find the challenge here on my blog. Please do not copy the post to other websites or your own blog. You may certainly link the study but do not copy the study. Feel free to post a quote but not the entire study. Remember, this study is copyrighted. Thank you! And make sure you subscribe to my blog if you haven't already. :) If you have friends that you think may be interested in joining us, feel free to send them the link to this post! For more information, please see the section above titled "What if You Want to Study with People at Church?"

Where can we share our work?
A lot of us will be sharing on our blogs and in various galleries such as Splitcoaststampers, 2Peas, Scrapbook.com, Flickr, Pinterest, etc. Wherever you share, you can use this keyword and it will help others find your work more easily--HSCRC13. I will also use inlinkz.com for this challenge so that you can leave a link to your work here on my blog for others to see.

Is there a blinkie for this challenge?
Yes, but let's call it a button instead of a blinkie. :) It's a miniature version of the picture at the beginning of this post. I did not make one that blinks. It is a "stand alone" button that I created using a free kit from Two Peas in a Bucket called "Hearts-n-Crafts." You will find this button in the sidebar of my blog and below this paragraph. Right-click and save it to your computer to add to your blog. I also ask that you link it back to this post or my blog. Feel free to add it to your message board signatures too. I hope you like it.

To see all of the current challenges thus far for 2013, please click here.

Whew, sorry this post got so long. Book mark it. It will be the "main information page" for the Hymn and Scripture Challenge. Please e-mail me if you have more questions, and I would love to know your thoughts on this upcoming challenge. Feel free to leave comments here! Blessings, and see you January 13th with our first hymn and study for 2013!

9 comments:

Thanks for doing a new challenge Patter,really appreciate the work you put in. I so enjoy creating my pages ,although I am behind this year due to my move [ several pages due to be linked soon!] Your posts always challenge us spiritually as well as creatively and are a joy to read. May you and your family have a very blessed New Year.

Patter, This is so nice that you are continuing with hymns as there are so many of them.I hope to join you again and plan on doing mine totally digital in 6 x 6 to hang in the stand my husband made me.

I hope 2013 will bring many happy blessings to you and your family.God BlessAnne-Marie

Patter, it is so nice that you are continuing with the hymns as there are so many of them.I plan on joining in again and will do my pages totally digital 6 x 6 to put in the frame my husband made for me.I hope you and your family are blessed with good health and happiness throughout 2013.God BlessAnne-Marie

I am another excited follower as I have really been enjoying the ones for this year. I will continue on with this year asmitmreallymis a blessing and a wonderful reason to be able to share God. Thanks Patter for being so devoted to this challenge.

I'm so excited about getting back to the discipline of your hymn study. I really fell off the wagon last year, and missed it terribly! I'll add this to my few pages from last year. God bless you greatly for being so faithful to His Word. MaryH